For the past week, the Toronto Blue Jays have owned the sports news cycle thanks to the club’s big time acquisitions of Troy Tulowitzki and David Price ahead of the MLB trade deadline. There’s one problem, though: there’s a possibility that neither trade will actually help get the Blue Jays into the post-season.

The Blue Jays currently sit two games back of a wild-card spot, and, even then, they may find themselves ousted in the one-game playoff between the wild-card teams. If that happens, they will have made two major trades and, especially with regards to the Price trade, have mortgaged their future in a non-playoff year.

This isn’t a problem specific to baseball, however. Every year, teams wheel and deal at the NHL trade deadline with hopes of getting that final piece to put them over the top. This season was a rarity, in that the Chicago Blackhawks’ key addition, Antoine Vermette, actually performed admirably throughout the post-season and helped bring another Cup to the Windy City. In other cases, though, the deals went bust. Such is the case when there can only be one champion.

Here are five deadline deals from the past season that fell flat: Read more

The Boston Bruins are getting prepared for the second Winter Classic in franchise history and at a press conference today the team and their opponent, the longtime rival Montreal Canadiens, unveiled the logos they’ll be using for the outdoor tilt.

According to TSN 690 in Montreal, the two teams will be facing off in classic style, donning jerseys that closely mirror those worn in the 1924-25 season, more than 90 years before their outdoor game is set to take place.

The Bruins logo, which utilizes an arching font over top of a Bruin, is a slight alteration of the jerseys Boston wore during that campaign, the first in Bruins history. The jerseys, according to NHLUniforms.com, were only worn for the inaugural season before Boston switched to a busy white, brown and yellow striped jersey the following campaign. Read more

One of the biggest free agent deals took place when the Chicago Blackhawks signed Bobby Orr away from the Boston Bruins in June 1976. Orr’s time in Chicago was a forgettable end to his legacy, which also resulted in two terrible hockey cards. For their 1976-77 sets, Topps and O-Pee-Chee — not yet possessing a photo of Orr with Chicago — awkwardly painted a ‘Hawks uniform onto a picture of the superstar, complete with a doctored logo. Despite the injury-plagued Orr playing 20 games that season, the card companies didn’t bother getting an up-to-date picture, and again painted ‘Hawks colors on Orr’s photo for their 1977-78 sets. It was almost convincing, too, until you notice that he’s sitting on the bench next to a Bruins player. Read more

Portzline suggests a deal between the Blue Jackets and the 33-year-old Ehrhoff is possible, provided the latter remains on the free-agent market long enough to drive down his asking price. Despite missing 33 games last season due to head injuries, the puck-moving rearguard could help the Blue Jacket’s power play.

The Jackets only have around $3.6 million in cap space for 2015-16, which Portzline believes is why they’re willing to be patient in their dealings with Ehrhoff. He also notes several other defensemen, including Andrej Meszaros, Cody Franson and Marek Zidlicky are available, but hasn’t yet confirmed if the Jackets are interested in them. Read more

If you were wondering what has taken so long for defenseman Cody Franson to sign a new contract, you’re not alone. Franson himself seems to be getting impatient.

In an interview with TSN 1040 in Vancouver, Franson opened an interview with questions about his contract and when hosts Matt Sekeres and Jeff Paterson remark that they thought Franson would have a contract by now, the unrestricted free agent blueliner said they weren’t the only ones.

It’s almost a shame that the NHL is changing its overtime rules in order to limit the amount of game-deciding shootouts, because it looks like there are some young up-and-comers who have quite the repertoire of moves.

Throughout prospect camp, we’ve been dazzled by shootout or breakaway goals from the likes of Carolina’s Sergey Tolchinsky and Minnesota’s Alex Tuch, but Boston prospect Jake DeBrusk brought out something special Friday afternoon at the Bruins’ prospect camp.

During a shootout competition, the 18-year-old DeBrusk went behind his back, behind his legs and snapped the puck up and over the netminder. Check it out, via MassLive.com: Read more

With 3:35 left in Game 7, Matt Frattin had a chance to bury the Bruins. Taking advantage of a fumbling Dougie Hamilton, Frattin stripped the Boston defenseman at the Toronto blueline and charged up the ice with the opportunity to extend what was already a shocking 4-2 lead for the Maple Leafs. But Frattin’s backhand attempt went wide of Tuukka Rask’s net, and the Bruins weren’t dead yet.

You know what happened next.

Boston scored twice in the waning minutes to send the game into overtime, then broke the hearts of Leafs Nation when Patrice Bergeron pounded a rebound past a prone James Reimer. The Bruins, heavy favorites entering the series, narrowly escaped a massive first-round upset. Boston went on to lose in the 2013 Stanley Cup final. Read more